Saskatoon man wins provincial Rural Crime Innovation Challenge

The first winner of the Rural Crime Innovation Challenge spoke about his project in the Legislature Monday.

The challenge, created by Innovation Saskatchewan in conjunction with the Ministry of Justice, was created to address crime in rural areas.

Jeff Shirley says his winning innovation could be instrumental in helping people in rural areas better protect themselves.

“What it is, is a device that can track assests,” Shirley says. “It has some hardware inside of it to detect motion. It’s self-powered; it can connect up to batteries on rural vehicles such as quads, skidoos, tractors, cars, what have you.”

Shirley says when suspicious activity goes on, alerts are sent out to a database where authorities can act proactively.